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(Updated
5:30 p.m., July 31)
Massive sewage
spill closes Petrie Island beach for the weekend
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online
So much for progress.
Just when you thought Petrie Island was on the cusp of shedding its reputation
for having the poorest water quality in Ottawa, a massive sewage spill has
caused city officials to close the island's three beaches for the long weekend.
The city's medical
officer of health ordered the beaches closed after 6.5 million gallons of
sewage flowed into the Ottawa River on Thursday thanks to a jammed regulator
near 24 Sussex Drive.
According to
city officials, a two foot by four foot steel plate was found jammed in
the Keefer St. regulator by work crews arriving on the scene early Thursday
morning.
The Keefer St.
regulator is the same regulator that malfunctioned in 2004 causing more
than a billion gallons of raw sewage to flow into the Ottawa River which
led to the now infamous "sewergate".
After the 2004
incident, all three levels of government made a commitment to replace the
aging regulators -- that process began this spring and is still ongoing.
It is believed the steel plate came from the construction site.
In order to allow
work crews to remove the steel plate from the regulator, the city had to
divert thousands of gallons of raw sewage into the river during the two
hour process.
It will take
three to four days for the contaminated water to makes its way down the
river and past Petrie Island before the beaches can be reopened
Before the spill
occurred the beaches at Petrie Island were already having a pretty rough
summer. According to the city's website, which gives a daily update of the
city's five municipal beaches. The two beaches on the north side of the
island have been closed 17 times since June 21, but the bacteria levels
on those days were only above the city's threshold of 200 E. Coli per 100
mL of water tested five times.
The majority
of the closures were directly related to the city's policy of issuing a
no-swimming advisory whenever a rainfall of five millimetres or more occurs.
The science, however, is far from exact.
For instance,
the beaches were closed on June 29 after it rained the day before. A water
sample taken on the same day, however, showed the bacteria level was only
20 which is well within the city's guidelines to allow the beaches to remain
open. In fact, there have been 13 occasions so far this summer when a no
swimming advisory was issued on days when the bacteria levels were perfectly
safe.
The reason for
the disparity is simple -- there's a 24 hour lag between when the no-swimming
advisory is in effect and when the results of the water samples are received
back from the lab.
If you simply
go by the test results, the bacteria levels at both the north and east beaches
at Petrie Island have been above the 200 level five times. By comparison,
the bacteria levels at Mooney's Bay have been above the 200 level four times
and the bacteria levels at Westboro Beach have been above the threshold
the same number of times as Petrie Island.
The one beach
that has managed to stay open for all but two days so far this summer is
Britannia Beach in the west end where the bacteria level has only exceeded
the 200 mark once.
As the summer
goes on and hopefully the temperature heats up, the city will continue to
test the water quality at Petrie Island on a daily basis. For the latest
updates on the water quality visit www.ottawa.ca.
(This story
was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local
business partners.)
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